China, the world's largest maker of DVD (digital versatile disc) players, has launched a new format to shake off its dependence on foreign technologies
E-world Technology, the front company of a consortium of businessmen and academics, released the new format, which will be playable only on EVD players and promises five times :clap: the image quality of DVD movies and a higher data-storage capacity.

The first EVD players will be marketed next month.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200311/27/eng20031127_129180.shtml

:hmm:

moovieboy

11-28-2003, 09:49 PM

What's the point of having a far superior and more expensive player if the studios aren't making the disks? Which, sorry China, is pretty unlikely to change... Why would Hollywood want to give even better quality electronic media to a country known for epidemic digital pirating?

My .02 :D

-Tom

El Beano

11-28-2003, 11:42 PM

Chinese EVDs. Now they will need "duel" DVD/EVD players. Smart.

MartinGFoster

11-29-2003, 01:51 AM

Originally posted by moovieboy
What's the point of having a far superior and more expensive player if the studios aren't making the disks? Which, sorry China, is pretty unlikely to change... Why would Hollywood want to give even better quality electronic media to a country known for epidemic digital pirating?

My .02 :D

-Tom

there's a big film industry in Hong Kong, which is now officially part of China. So I imagine they have a pretty strong homegrown industry in the rest of the country too.

Hollywood is not the only game in town.

moovieboy

11-29-2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by MartinGFoster
there's a big film industry in Hong Kong, which is now officially part of China. So I imagine they have a pretty strong homegrown industry in the rest of the country too.

Hollywood is not the only game in town.

Of course Hollywood isn't everything, but you can't have it both ways.

If the whole point of EVD is to break the yoke of dependence on other technologies, then how do you successfully sell it to your consumers by saying it's more expensive AND will only play SOME of the movies you want!?!

Unless you make the player a EVD/DVD hybrid, which is fine... except you go right back to being dependent on "foreign" technologies...

-Tom

emptyvoxel

11-29-2003, 05:47 PM

Originally posted by moovieboy
Of course Hollywood isn't everything, but you can't have it both ways.

If the whole point of EVD is to break the yoke of dependence on other technologies, then how do you successfully sell it to your consumers by saying it's more expensive AND will only play SOME of the movies you want!?!

The words you used, "sell" and "consumer" don't have the same connotation in China as they do in the United States. The government is much more successful at controlling the progress of and the path taken by technology. They've been playing movies on VCD for years, and have no trouble getting Hollywood films in that format. If EVD is as good as they say it is, their plan might backfire as the West adopts THEIR technology. Wouldn't that be ironic?

-T

El Beano

11-29-2003, 06:26 PM

Don't worry... you won't see any EVDs at blockbuster...umm...ever! :)

DePingus

11-29-2003, 06:36 PM

Originally posted by mrZack
...promises five times :clap: the image quality of DVD movies...

What kind of television would you need to view the image at 5x the quality? Do they even exist? As it is, your average DVD watcher doesn't own an HDTV with which to enjoy progressive scan viewing on current DVD technology (assuming they even own a prorgessive scan DVD player of course).

leuey

11-29-2003, 07:43 PM

Originally posted by mrZack
will be playable only on EVD players and promises five times :clap: the image quality of DVD movies and a higher data-storage capacity.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200311/27/eng20031127_129180.shtml

:hmm:

What does 'five times the image quality' mean exactly? Five times the resolution? HD is closer to 6x the res of SD - so I'm not sure if they're talking about HD. If it's some sort of subjective 'quality' I don't really get it. Most people wouldn't see the difference between non-compressed SD footage and standerd mpeg2 DVD compression when they're sitting on a couch 8 feet from their TV.

I also agree that I have a hard time seeimg companies produce EVD's for a market where stealing is more the norm than buying (sorry - but from I've read that seems to be the case. Same w/ software)

later,

Greg

onlooker

11-30-2003, 01:15 AM

Originally posted by DePingus
What kind of television would you need to view the image at 5x the quality? Do they even exist? As it is, your average DVD watcher doesn't own an HDTV with which to enjoy progressive scan viewing on current DVD technology (assuming they even own a prorgessive scan DVD player of course).

DVD isn't as high a quality as HDTV. Progressive scan can bring out more than a regular non progressive signal DVD player, but until there is a HD/DVD it's not going to help much. EDV could be a HD/DVD in a new pair of shoes. I had heard that there was a HD/DVD Disc on the drawing board, but it was scrapped because studios thought they would rake in more $$$$$$$ selling DVD collections then waiting for the HDTV signal standardization to settle in, and then market the HD/DVD. That way many people would be compelled repurchase their entire collections again. Just like LP, audio tapes, then CD. It's a win win situation for the fat cat trying to get fatter, and fatter. :twisted:

CourtJester

11-30-2003, 05:22 AM

Originally posted by Tencendur

They've been playing movies on VCD for years, and have no trouble getting Hollywood films in that format. If EVD is as good as they say it is, their plan might backfire as the West adopts THEIR technology. Wouldn't that be ironic?
-T

VCD works because it's VHS quality (360x240 MPEG1), at worst it's a same-to-same tranfer, but is effectively a slight downsampling from VHS, and a pronounced downsampling from DVD. If EVD is higher-resolution than DVD, the duplication would be UP-sampling, which eliminates any improvements there.

UNLESS... their intention is that local work will be produced native to EVD and will automatically look BETTER than Western material duped from the lesser DVD format? An interesting play, that, but that advantage would last all of one year at most until some HD format shows up in the West.

But in that case, they'll be right back where they were with VCD. Maybe THAT'S the point.

Or maybe EVD is a hi-def format without any DRM? RIAA couldn't do squat about that. Maybe that's it!

or...

My head hurts...:hmm:

projectcoil

11-30-2003, 11:58 AM

MPG2 is an old codec in today's market. There are some banding issues even with DVDs, and the audio isn't that great either. Divx and Xvid both offer far better compression and quality than MPG2. When will people realise new technologies are a good thing? Asia has always been better at accepting new technologies than the North America. MiniDisc, VCD, SVCD, Laser-Disc, and DVD-Audio have had been long standards in Asia and Europe, thus it astonishes me why a new format like EVD would flabbergast anyone. There isn't that much politics around it. If you want HD to fit on standard laser media, you'll either have to up the density of the discs and/or change the codec algorithm. A 2 hour HD movie simply won't fit on a single layered DVD with MPG2 compression. In addition I find it ironic 5.1 channel audio is standard with film, yet, we're stuck with 2 channel stereo audio as the primary source of our music. DVD-Audio should have replaced stereo CDs long ago when it was first introduced, but I presume loyalist didn't like the idea having invested so much with their CD collections.

Some readings on on2 VP6 Codec (http://www.on2.com/vp6.php3) proposed for EVD.

Freestyler

11-30-2003, 09:19 PM

I did hear something about a Blu-Ray Disc,
which is a disc with a capacity of 23 GB and is to replace the DVD.
same quality as DVD only this disc can contain over 6 dvd movies

Neil

12-01-2003, 01:19 AM

So no one wants to talk about this when i post it? :cry:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103941&highlight=EVD

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